Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Widger, stop your weepin'

OK.
I’ve officially had it with the mopey, maudlin reflections on digital
technology the likes of Caeli
Wolfson Widger’s “Why I Silence Your
Call”. Specifically regarding the practice of letting calls go to
voice, as Miss Manners has been telling any of us who will listen ever since
the answering machine was invented, it’s not impolite to screen your calls; it’s
simply the modern-day equivalent of instructing one’s butler to tell callers, “Pansy
is unable to take callers right now. You may leave your card.” If you were
unfortunate enough not to have a butler, you delegated this duty to another
household member, or simply didn’t answer the door. Perhaps you hung a note on
your door to that effect, Martin Luther style. See? Nothing new here.

What
some fail to grasp is that a phone call is by its very nature intrusive: It’s by
definition someone demanding your immediate attention and time. Thus phone
calls should be reserved for emergencies. On the rare occasions when I initiate
a phone call, I ask the recipient, “Is this a good time for you?” or “Have you
got a minute?” Diving right in is now considered presuming on someone’s time.
Even then I often preface a call with a text, so the recipient has an idea of
what I want and can respond at their convenience.

In
a related vein, can we please stop moaning that e-mail “just doesn’t have the
nuance / tone / voice cues” of telephoning? And that e-readers “just aren’t the
same as a ‘real book that I hold in my hands’”? If e-mail doesn’t allow for
voice cues, then it certainly shares an epistolary tradition that goes all the
way back to the first chiseled word. I’m sure that when the first printed book
rolled off the presses, a chorus of monks could be heard from their collective scriptoria:
“But it’s just not the same as ink and parchment!” And the first papyrus
users no doubt heard their moms say, “But it just doesn’t have the same feel
as that cold, chiseled stone!”

Folks,
e-mail is simply a newer way to convey text. That’s all it is. It has no
inherent inferiority to what preceded it, nor does an e-reader. The phenomenon of
mass-produced paper books only existed for the few generations growing up post
World War II. Remember Scholastic Books that we all take for granted? Those
didn’t exist pre-WWII; before that, only the wealthy had regular access to
paper books. So there is nothing more inherently book-like about a paper book
than there is about a book read on an e-reader. The same information is being
conveyed (at even less cost), just digitally.

That
having been said, I’m expecting not to hear any more weeping and wailing about
technology and how it was in the good ol’ days before we had it. Get over it.
And feel free to call me if it’s an emergency.

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Nina171 says:

When I got married, I didn’t even consider changing my name. My traditional father said, "I can't believe he's allowing you to do that." I said, "I would never marry someone who would think he had a say in the matter."